These Drones Can Plant 100,000 Trees in One Day

Billions of trees are felled each year, according to the Rainforest Action Network, and planting a tree requires more time and effort than cutting one down. That makes keeping up with deforestation rates challenging for conservationists. The minds behind one tech startup think they can speed up global tree-planting efforts by taking the burden off humans and placing it on drones.

BioCarbon Engineering has assembled a fleet of drones that can plant thousands of trees a day, as Fast Company reports. The company will soon focus its efforts on Myanmar’s Irrawaddy River delta, an area that’s seen rapid loss of its mangrove trees due to aquaculture, agriculture, and logging. Estimates place the amount of regional mangroves destroyed in the past 30 years between 75 and 83 percent. Starting in September, BioCarbon will partner with Worldview International Foundation to aid restoration efforts started by human hands.

Spreading seeds from aircraft (like helicopters) is not a new strategy. These methods are valued for their speed, but chances of tree survival are hurt in the process. To come up with an efficient way of planting that doesn’t damage seeds, BioCarbon had to get innovative.

After the company maps a plot of land from above and analyzes the best spots for planting, their drones fly low to the ground and fire nutrient-packed seed pods into the soil. This way, more seeds end up in places where they’ll thrive rather than on rocks or in streams where they’ll go to waste.

With one human pilot for every six drones, the company is able to get 100,000 pods in the ground a day. Even in places with regulations restricting pilots to one drone at a time, the vehicles are 10 times faster and half as expensive as human labor. Worldview International Foundation, which has worked with the Irrawaddy delta community to plant 750 hectares of trees so far, hopes to expand that area by 250 hectares with help from BioCarbon Engineering. The team also plans to continue employing locals to assemble seed pods and cultivate saplings.

To get a closer look at their planting process, check out the video below.

How to Rig Your Android Phone to Play Old Floppy Disk Games

Owning a smartphone means you have thousands of games at your fingertips, but capturing the nostalgia of playing a game saved on a floppy disk isn't as simple as downloading an app. Reviving floppy disk games for the smartphone era is a bit more complicated, and YouTube vintage video game reviewer LGR shows you just how to do it step by step.

In this video, spotted by Kotaku, LGR takes an old floppy disk, the same kind you used in your computer class at school, and uses it to play a classic video game on a smartphone. This is made possible with an Android phone, a USB connector, an Android USB adaptor, and a portable floppy disk drive that's about as big as the phone itself. (The hardware doesn't work for iPhones, but if you're an Apple user there are plenty of ways to play old PC games online).

Just inserting the disk into the drive when it's connected to your phone isn't enough to start playing: You need to download a special app that mimics Microsoft's old disk operating system, like Magic Dosbox, for example. Once you have that on your phone, you can use it to open whatever game is saved to your floppy disk.

Because old PC games weren't made for touchscreens, the smartphone gameplay can be a little be a little awkward—but if you're willing to hook a floppy disk drive up to your phone, convenience likely isn't your goal. You can watch LGR's full instructions in the video below.

The Blue Light Emanating From Your Smartphone Could Ruin Your Eyes

We already know that the blue light from our devices is a major contributor to insomnia. Now, a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that our ubiquitous screens pose an even more insidious threat. As Business Insider reports, looking at blue light all day can speed up the process that causes blindness.

For the study, researchers from the University of Toledo shined blue light—the same kind that emanates from smartphones, laptops, and tablets—directly onto eye cells. They found that the light transformed retinal molecules in the eye's photoreceptors into molecules that were toxic to the cells around them. The new, mutated retinal dissolved the membranes of nearby photoreceptor cells, ultimately killing them. In other words: Blue light can cause serious damage to the eyes.

Macular degeneration is what happens when photoreceptor cells in the eyes break down, as was the case in the researchers' blue light experiment. Unlike other some cells, photoreceptor cells in the retina can't regenerate, so if enough of them die, it can lead to permanent vision impairment or even blindness.

This process happens naturally to some people as they age, but blue light adds an unnatural element to the equation. If you spend enough time with your eyes locked to a screen, the quality of your vision could degrade much faster than it would otherwise.

The easiest way to avoid this outcome is to look at your phone less, which is easier said than done. A more realistic resolution to make is to avoid scrolling through apps or opening your computer in the dark.